TOUR BY YACHT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 September 1938, Page 7

TOUR BY YACHT

VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS MAN’S PLANS. When the 50ft ketch Fram sailed from Sydney on a world tour, Mr Bradford Potter, its owner, recently realised an ambition that he has cherished for many years. ■ “I have had my nose to the grindstone for nearly 40 years,” he said in an interview. “My business affairs have been wound-up, and now life is beginning for me at the age of 50. I can imagine no fate worse than to retire and settle down to a humdrum existence in the city. It would kill me.” The Fram headed north for the Barrier Reef, proceeding thence, to the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, across the Pacific to America, through the Panama Canal, and then across the Atlantic to England. “That is my programme,” Mr Potter added, as he stowed another case of preserved fruit in the small hold beneath the saloon. “I am not a navigator in the examination sense, but I have studied navigation for years. Unknown waters hold no terrors for me. I have sailed yachts for 3000 or 4000 miles on the Australian coast.” When Mr Potter was asked if he considered the Fram would ride the severest storms, he replied that he was convinced that she would. “She has been designed on the lines of the famous life-saving boats attached to the Scandinavian fishing fleets,” he said. “Those boats face the most treacherous coasts and perhaps the worst weather in the world. I studied plans when I was in Norway in 1936, and made up my mind that there was no type of sailing ship better suited to my purpose.”

In the saloon there is a small shelf made of wood from Nansen’s famous Polar ship, the Fram. Mr Potter brought it back to Australia with him, and he regards it as his mascot. Mr Potter’s crew will comprise his son, Mr Jack Potter, and his college friend, Mr Clive Rushton. Mr Edward Hearsey, an American, who came to Australia two years ago in the Finnish barque Moshulu as an apprentice, and a life-long friend of Mr Bradford Potter, who prefers at present to be described as the fifth member of the party. There is sufficient Australian tinned food aboard the Fram to last the party four years. Five hundred gallons of water will be carried in tanks. Moreover, she carries the latest devices for catching rain water. Mr Potter himself designed the interior fittings. The commodious kitchen is fitted with a refrigerator. There are nearly 300 books in the saloon.